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It has been
frequently said that boys need fathers, but the latest briefing
paper from the CIVITAS think tank shows this need is not limited
to boys - girls need them just as much.
Using over 100 pieces of research, author Rebecca O'Neill sets
out to answer whether society's experiment with the fatherless
family has improved our lives and that of our children. Is the
so-called 'traditional' family equal to the fatherless family
or is the re-defined 'family' a change for the better?
The experiment is familiar: Marriage is widely regarded as little
different from other relationships. Changes in divorce, cohabitation
and births outside marriage mean that fewer children now grow
up with both their parents. Committed life-long relationships
are regarded as attainable only for a few.
The conclusion is predictable: O'Neill lists the devastating
and widespread effects of this experiment on adults, children
and society. Children living without their biological fathers
are more likely to be in poverty, in poor health, homeless,
suffering physical, emotional or sexual abuse. Teenagers without
their fathers are more likely to be teen parents, to offend,
to smoke, to take drugs, to play truant, to face exclusion,
to leave school early. Young adults who grow up not living with
their fathers are more likely to be unemployed, to have low
incomes, to experience homelessness, to go to jail, to enter
and dissolve cohabiting unions, to have children themselves
outside marriage… and so the lists go on.
This does not all mean that it is impossible for a single parent
to raise children well, it means it is more difficult for both
parent and child. O'Neill makes no specific recommendations
about what should or could be done now. However at the heart
of her message is the simple point that single parenthood has
been encouraged by a liberal agenda.
This leaves the obvious danger that this kind of message could
be used to stigmatise those who are not married, or to make
their life more difficult in order to drag them back 'into line'.
Somehow we need instead to tread the fine line between supporting
and helping all 'families', and their children, whilst simultaneously
encouraging, supporting and pointing people to committed, life-long
relationships.
Which leads us to the perhaps inadvertent message that may be
heard from O'Neill's paper: society has abandoned marriage.
Yet we need to take heart from the statistics we seem to rarely
hear about: many people may cohabit, and many have children
outside marriage, BUT the majority do still get married, and
still want to get married. Society is still orientated towards
marriage, even though it does not get the public support and
credit it deserves.
What we need to hear more of now is the other side of the CIVITAS
message: the merits of marriage. Having heard about the costs
to children from the fatherless family, there is need for more
on the positives of marriage and life-long committed relationships.
Again, there is extensive academic research on which to build
the case that the family based on a married father and mother
is the best environment for raising children and forms the soundest
basis for wider society.
Essentially the CIVITAS paper is a re-packaging of a message
(and indeed research) that has, on the whole, been widely disseminated
already in different formats. Nevertheless, the research it
details is extensive and authoritative. And just because it
has been said before does not mean it is not true or unimportant.
The message it tells is certainly disturbingly powerful and
if re-packaging the material means it reaches a wider audience,
lets keep re-packaging and getting this important, if depressing,
message out. Experiments with the family are not games, we are
not playing with toys but with children, adults and the very
fabric of society.
Philippa Taylor
Consultant to CARE and author of For Better or For Worse
(A look at the benefits of marriage compared to cohabitation.)
email: philippa@malcolm.co.uk
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